The right to privacy is a firmly entrenched democratic principle that has been inferred in the U.S. Constitution and protected by the Fourteenth Amendment as a liberty of personal autonomy. It is the statutory right to privacy that has been most closely aligned with data protection as a form of self-protection. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has led efforts to enforce compliance with privacy. The statutory right of privacy limits access to personal information and has been extolled in the proliferation of privacy policies and legislation that control the collection of information about children on the Internet. Despite the longstanding tradition of individuals controlling access to and use of personal information, technology has expanded the flow of identifiable data into the public domain. Students' rights and protections are emerging as a key public concern, and the public documentation and tracking of young lives through Web logs or blogs, e-journals, digital photos, Web pages, online profiles, radio frequency identification, and other forms of data surveillance have complicated efforts to safeguard young people's privacy protections in digital spaces. This article explores controversies over the protection of children's privacy in a digital age and discusses connections between online privacy, cyber-identity, and self-protection in a democratic society. (Contains 31 notes.)

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